


Fail Better

by vigilantejam



Category: Ally McBeal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantejam/pseuds/vigilantejam
Summary: hello yuletide recipient!okay full disclosure we matched on a different fandom, but i saw this as your number one request and got zapped back into my teen self, furious about the dirty done to ally and larry. so. it had to be this. i hope it is what you need, and i wish you a very happy holiday and jubilant yuletide!
Relationships: Ally McBeal/Larry Paul
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Fail Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [armadillo1976](https://archiveofourown.org/users/armadillo1976/gifts).



“Don’t you wanna open it?” Elaine says, holding out the note.

Ally feels the world slow down, the brightness and colour fades.

He did it, he actually did it. A week ago, even two days ago, Ally would have told you they were past that, that he would never actually _leave with a note._ Not now, and not to her. Isn't it basically an in-joke at this point? But everything has changed. She felt it coming and she even predicted it. At least it's not a break up note. She already did that.

“No. I know what it says.”

Ally turns and walks into her office. It feels cold and empty, and it has been the scene of too many goodbyes. She sits numbly at her desk and taps at the stack of papers there until finally her fingers still too and there is nothing. She doesn't know how long she sits there before there is a shift in the air. The tension in her shoulders eases. Of course.

“Why haven't you been coming around this year?” Ally asks Billy, and as she looks up at him a pang of guilt twists in her heart. She knows exactly why. It's there in his soft sad eyes, the gentleness of his smile.

“You haven’t called me,” Billy says, his words quiet and kind. “Or needed me.”

“Oh, and I suppose I need you now, do I?” Ally says. She tries to keep the snarl out of her voice, but it hurts twice as much. Billy's here and Larry isn't, and Ally is guilty about one and angry about the other. She stands abruptly and whips round to stare out of the window. How many more times can she be too late or not enough?

“I’m just checking in,” Billy says.

Ally watches his reflection. His head drops for a moment.

“And I-”

She turns right as he looks up again there are tears filming his eyes.

“I came to say goodbye.”

Oh, this really is too much.

“Oh, you too, huh?” Ally snaps and marches around her desk. “No notes in the after life? No, at least you showed up to do it, Billy. And you're dead! What's Larry's excuse? I hope he knows he has worse manners than a ghost.”

Billy chuckles and sniffs away the tears that didn't quite form. “You never had much patience.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” she says. “I'm supposed to have patience with the guy who kisses other women and cancels lunch to be with his ex-wife and can't even be bothered to turn up to ditch me forever?”

“I'm just saying,” Billy says, unendingly calm and soothing. “You have a habit of skipping to the end before you're even there. Go and read the note, Ally.”

“You go read it,” she pouts and scowls, but she goes to the door anyway.

When she opens it, Elaine is standing there, her hand raised about to knock. She looks past Ally into the empty room.

“Elaine.”

“I just think you should read it,” Elaine chews on her thumb and sheepishly hands over the note.

“Oh, everyone thinks I should _read it,”_ Ally snaps again, and snatches the envelope from Elaine's fingers.

It's written in Larry's big block capitals and for a second Ally's vision swims and the only word she can see is 'goodbye'. She takes a breath and runs her finger over the card stock, over the words that are definitely written there.

_I LOVE YOU. THIS ISN'T GOODBYE._

Ally worries her bottom lip between her teeth, tries to suppress the smile that wants to form, wants to stretch into a broad grin, wants to take over her face and her body and send her cartwheeling through the office. Elaine quietly retreats and closes the office door.

“I guess I’ll be going.”

“Billy,” Ally turns quickly. He's smiling at her, in that way of his, with just a touch of I told you so. She can't even be mad about it.

“Thank you.”

“Love you,” Billy says, and with a shimmer he fades away.

*********

Larry's face, when he arrives at the apartment, is downturned and serious. It doesn't suit him. He looks at Ally over the top of his glasses as she invites him in.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

There is a sigh behind her and Ally turns to see Renée give them each a pointed look before stalking off to her room.

“I guess I deserved that,” Larry says, something approaching a smile but not quite there passing over his mouth.

“Maybe,” Ally says. There is a pause, like they're both waiting for the other to speak, or pounce.

“Can we start again, Larry?” Ally says, suddenly frantic. He'll leave again if she doesn't say something. “Can we start somewhere with no office misunderstandings and jealous exes and just be us?”

“We can't do that, Ally,” he says, his mouth twisted again into a grimace. “Those things happened. And those things will always be a part of our lives.”

“Oh.”

“And I don't _want_ to start again.”

And there it is. Ally can't stop her face falling any more than she can stop the hollow ringing in her ears. Larry's pacing. She's frozen to the spot and he's pacing, out of sync and out of time with each other. She was an idiot for thinking this could be different.

“I'm- I'm gonna- _try_ something here-” He's stammering, his voice clipped and broken and distant. “And I don't really know what's going to happen. I don't know how to propose to someone who has broken up with me, and I did such a terrible job trying to propose when we were together, but-”

“Wait,” Ally says and holds up a hand. She furrows her brow at him. “Pro- propose?” Her movements mimic his, jittery, uncertain.

“Yeah, Ally. That's what,” he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That's what this whole week was about.”

“You were trying to _propose.”_ She taps her fingers against her lips.

“Will you marry me?”

“Ha! Hmm.” She purses her lips more, and considers him. It's almost casual the way he says it. As though it's not the very question that has been tearing them apart for days, turning him into a neurotic lunatic and her a paranoid depressive. As though it just needs to be said, and everything will be fixed. Said but not meant.

“You know what, Larry? No. No, I don't think I can.”

Now it's his turn to be stunned. He stops pacing and looks at her for a moment. Perhaps he realises his mistake. He steps forward and takes her by the shoulders.

“I know I said I couldn't promise not to fail, and that's still the case,” he looks her dead in the eye. There's more feeling and honesty here than in the proposal. “But I want to _try._ If I don't try then we're done, but if I _try_... maybe I'll... fail better?”

She brushes his hands away. The warmth where he had gripped her fades instantly.

“No, but look how spooked we got by things being just a little off,” she says, and once she has started it all comes tumbling out. “You said you don't trust yourself and well, I don't trust you either or I wouldn't have gone right to the bad ending. I don't think we can get married until we both believe it isn't going to end in disaster. You left me a note and I almost didn’t read it because I was so sure it was there instead of a goodbye. I can't go around being terrified of every note with your handwriting on it and I can’t be married to someone I’m convinced is half out the door, Larry, I can’t.”

She takes a breath. She already broke up with him, but just as an engagement would be too far in the other direction, letting him walk out of here forever doesn't sit well with her either. 

“But I think, if you'll let me,” she adds. “I'll take back that break up.”

“Yeah?” The hope on his face is almost too much.

“Yeah. Let's try.”

* * *

She sees him off at the airport.

It's a trip with a goodbye, a summer in Detroit. She tamps down all the fear and feelings about Jamie following him back again. He looks her in the eye and says goodbye, she squeezes his hand, and he heads to the gate.

He calls later from the hotel, and they speak at the same time.

“That was so bad.”

“That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“Oh well, you made it,” Ally laughs. “And we're both still here. Call me tomorrow.”

“And the day after,” Larry promises.

“And the day after.”

When he comes back he has two extra bags. Large holdalls that strain their straps where they hang from his shoulders. He drops them on the floor of her, their, apartment.

“You didn't leave with this many bags.”

“I kind of did, actually,” he says with a scrunch of his nose. “I thought you could help me get rid of them.”

Ally raises an eyebrow in question. “Help you-”

Larry doesn't have an answer but to narrow his eyes. She bends to look at the bags. They have luggage tags on them. One is labelled Helena, the other Jamie.

“Very funny,” she says.

“I'm not throwing them out, you know,” Larry says when she stands back up. “But all the broken pieces. I'm ready to let go of them.”

“Losing your actual baggage.”

“That's right,” he smiles.

He looks so pleased with himself that she can only smile back and pick up the bag labelled Jamie. It sticks to the floor.

“What is in here?”

“Oh, _so_ much stuff, but don't worry, we're tossing it,” he laughs and hoists the bag with considerable effort on to his shoulder. “This one's lighter. Just about.”

They toss the bags in the dumpster of the restaurant across the street. It starts pouring with rain as soon as they land on the mountain of trash. Ally laughs as Larry kisses her hard up against the wall of the alley, and wipes the heavy drops from his glasses. He grabs her hand and they run back up to the apartment. They're barely in the door before they're tearing each other's soaked clothes off.

*********

He leaves notes.

Nice things, _how was your day_ when she's home and he's stuck at the office. _I love you_ s, and _we need coffee._

The first is a smiley face and good morning on a sticky note on the fridge. It stops her in her tracks for a second. It takes some time but gradually she doesn't freeze at the sight of them, she stops slowly approaching with dread pooling in her stomach until she makes out some words, and starts looking forward to them. She keeps every one.

* * *

Christmas brings cheer, and snow, and the spark of wonder Ally can’t keep out of her eyes no matter how much she tries to tone it down. She strings a few lights around the apartment, hangs a wreath on the door. Nothing too over the top, nothing that might bring him down. Sam’s coming for New Year's. Everything will be fine.

They’re heading out for Christmas Eve dinner when he catches her hand and pulls her to him in the doorway. It’s a good kiss. It's a _really_ good kiss. The kind that melts all her insides and makes her heart beat a little faster.

“I thought you wanted to go to dinner,” she says, lowering her head a little so she can look at him from under her eyelashes.

“I do!” he replies, smiling the way he does when he knows something she doesn’t. Which is irritatingly often. It makes her want to swat his shoulder and kiss him again.

“Keep going like that and we won’t make it,” she says, tightening her hands on the lapels of his coat.

“It’s just-” he looks up and lifts his chin and she follows his gaze to the bunch of mistletoe hanging over the threshold. She didn’t put it there.

“Oh!” she says with a giggle. “Oh, I see.” she tugs on his scarf and kisses him again.

“Getting into the spirit this year,” she murmurs, her lips still touching his.

“I thought of something to make every Christmas perfect,” he says, a little more serious.

She leans away from him. “Worst day of the year to perfect is quite a turnaround, Larry, I don't know what-”

He stretches up on his toes and tugs the mistletoe loose. He's grinning as he turns the bundle of little white berries and leaves around in his hands until something catches the light.

“Ah, yes, there we go,” he says.

He tosses the mistletoe over his shoulder with a smirk and he's left holding out a ring, a shining diamond between them. Ally’s breath catches and her eyes go wide. He’s down on one knee then, a little twitch pulling at his face like he feels ridiculous, but he’s doing it and he’s doing it properly.

“Ally McBeal,” he says, still trying to be serious but the happiness and laughter is bubbling out of him, making his eyes shine. “Will you marry me?”

She bounces on the spot, and pulls him back to his feet, pulls him in close. She has one hand pressed over his wool winter coat, over his heart.

“Yes, I will.” She wants to dance and laugh, she wants to never let go of him. “Merry Christmas, Larry.”

He tucks his chin down and wiggles the ring on to her finger. “Merry Christmas, Ally.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello yuletide recipient!
> 
> okay full disclosure we matched on a different fandom, but i saw this as your number one request and got zapped back into my teen self, furious about the dirty done to ally and larry. so. it had to be this. i hope it is what you need, and i wish you a very happy holiday and jubilant yuletide!


End file.
